 
when we received the cable from admiral dewey telling of the taking of the 
phillipines, i looked up their location on the globe. 
i could not have told where those darned islands were within 2,000 miles! 
the truth is i didn"t want the phillipines, and when they came to us, as a 
gift from the gods, i did not know what to do with them. 
when the spanish war broke out, dewey was at hong kong, and i ordered him 
to go to manila and to capture or destroy the spanish fleet.... 
but that was as far as i thought then.... 
... i thought first we would take only manila; then luzon; then other 
islands, perhaps also. 
i walked the floor of the white house night after night until midnight; and 
i am not ashamed to tell you, gentlemen, that i went down on my knees and 
prayed almighty god for light and guidance more than one night. 
and one night it came to me this way, i don"t now how it was, but it came: 
that we could not give them back to spain, that would be cowardly and 
dishonorable; that we could not turn them over to france or germany, our 
commercial rivals in the orient, that would be bad business and discreditable; 
we could not leave them to themselves, they were unfit for self-government, 
and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than spain's was; 
and that there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to 
educate the filipinos, and uplift and civilize and christianize them, and by 
god's grace to do the best we could by them.... 
